Taking advantage of the full potential of a VPN can have a host of benefits. When it comes to online privacy, security, and accessibility, a VPN is the best tool.
The use of technology and the Internet are increasingly popular, and so are VPNs. Indeed, a VPN is an essential part of our life, and Internet users who do not use them are at risk. However, it's important to know that nothing is perfect, not even a VPN.
Despite immense technological advancements over the years, there are some aspects of a VPN that still need to be improved. The downsides are not the same for everyone, but generally relate to location, connection, and other user-specific issues.
In this article, we take a look at the pros and cons of using a VPN, and the best VPNs for keeping you safe online .
Why VPN is so important?
Whether you're accessing important emails, using social media, streaming videos, or downloading content, enabling a VPN will protect you from the potential threats associated with using Wi-Fi. -Public and private Wi-Fi.
Ensure Your Security
Nowadays, people are more and more willing to share their personal information online. This means that hackers are spoiled for choice when it comes to stealing personal and financial information.
In addition, governments and Internet service providers spy on your activity, track and monitor your every move online. They use this information to send you targeted ads, limit your connection and sell your data to third parties.
With a VPN, all data transmitted and received by your device is encrypted, and your personal information remains confidential and inaccessible. Some VPNs offer military-grade encryption, which helps keep your information safe and gives you peace of mind.
Access Geo-Restricted Content
Depending on the country you are in, some types of online content may be geo-restricted, meaning you can only access it if you are in an eligible country. Unfortunately, some websites are able to detect if you are using a VPN, and will prevent you from accessing their content if necessary. This is particularly the case with Netflix.
Known IP addresses are analysed to determine which belong to VPN servers. So when a device tries to access Netflix, the site can match the IP address and block the content. However, this is a complicated algorithm that not many websites use.
No logging policy
It relies more on the premise of privacy than security. When we talk about logging, we are discussing the data collected about you during your internet sessions. This would likely include information like IP address, URLs you visited, etc. In general, all of your internet activity.
As one of the best VPN providers, ExpressVPN explicitly states that it does not keep logs of your activity. According to them, they have "carefully designed our applications and our VPN servers to categorically eliminate sensitive information."
This includes: • IP addresses (source or VPN) • Navigation history • Traffic destination or metadata • DNS queries
As a result, ExpressVPN can never be compelled to provide customer data that does not exist.
Split tunnelling - Choose network devices to protect
If you've decided to run ExpressVPN on your router rather than through apps on individual devices, Split Tunnelling is something you might need. It allows you to access the Internet and at the same time use another device on the network, such as a remote printer. The ExpressVPN app for your router can support this and is configurable to your liking.
For example, you can configure to protect all your computers on the network to pass their traffic through the VPN, but leave your printer open for normal traffic. If you shared it, someone else could still use this printer.
Disadvantages of VPN
VPNs also have a few drawbacks that you should be aware of. However, as you will see, the list is really short. After reviewing the many strengths of VPNs, we will therefore focus on the weaknesses of VPNs so that you don't have any bad surprises.
The drop in speed
As you can imagine, software like the Virtual Private Network is complex from a technical point of view and it will inevitably affect your connection speed. This is arguably one of the major drawbacks of VPNs.
The slowdown we are talking about varies greatly from one VPN to another.
There are big differences in terms of speeds between providers. Some manage to minimize this slowdown. This is the case of ExpressVPN, the provider qualified as faster thanks to unlimited bandwidth.
Its servers have such excellent speeds that you won't notice the difference. As proof, we often forget that it is connected. You will be able to download, watch movies and series without waiting for loading.
The drop in speed can therefore be the concern of VPNs. Fortunately, this is not the case for all. To turn this disadvantage into an advantage and avoid slowing down your internet connection, choose a fast VPN like ExpressVPN.
ExpressVPN
ExpressVPN is one of the biggest and most popular names in the VPN industry. Founded in 2009 and run by a company based in the British Virgin Islands, it has a long history of providing security and privacy.
While this is by no means the cheapest service out there, I think there is a lot to look forward to in ExpressVPN. Their sheer volume of features combined with a wide range of server locations makes this a service hard to beat.
If the advantages of VPN are convincing despite the disadvantages, you can subscribe to the ExpressVPN and get a special discount on expressvpn black friday.
Conclusion
These drawbacks must of course be known and taken into account. That said, they shouldn't block you from purchasing a VPN since, as you may have read, the benefits you will get will be far more numerous.
It's up to you to weigh the pros and cons before committing. Our goal here was to share with you, in complete transparency, all our experience on Virtual Private Networks, their strengths AND their weaknesses.
|